Before The Storm
by PirateNinjaCJS
Summary: Lena is a mermaid who is...different. She is curious. She explores. And the thing that she loves exploring the most is the old shipwreck not far from where she lives...The Black Pearl. But when Davy Jones appears to raise the Pearl from the depths, Lena is swept into a world of sacrifice, mystery, danger and romance. Jack/OC. Set thirteen years before DMC. R&R, no flames please!
1. Haircuts and Hair Colours

_**Hey guys, so this is a story about Jack and a young mermaid called Lena (short for Coralena). It is set thirteen years before the second POTC film, when Jack barters with Davy Jones and convinces him to raise the **_**Pearl**_** from the depths. It is a romance between Jack and a certain someone, but you might have to wait a little while before that comes in. It's rated T at the moment, but this rating might go up to M as the story progresses, just to be safe.**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for parts of the plot and any original characters such as Lena. This is a story created for entertainment, not profit or personal gain. Please review, they seriously make my day! And please enjoy!**_

A sea turtle hovered near the edge of a platter of coral, gently propelling itself forward with its front flippers to feed. Its hooked beak curved over the top of the coral as it began its steady gnawing at the seemingly hard surface. Nearby, a shoal of tiny fish darted in a single, inconceivable formation through tall patches of sea grass. Brightly coloured parrotfish meandered here and there, slowly, but not without purpose, while tiny seahorses peeked out from their homes of kelp.

All at once, the peaceful atmosphere was shattered like glass. Sea creatures scattered in all directions. The seahorses hid inside the kelp forest again. The fish, like lightning, were there one moment, and gone the next. The sea turtle, though deceptively docile at first glance, made its getaway with just a few powerful strokes of its front flippers to escape the monstrous ship that crashed through the reef-like area, huge and terrifying, with sails of woven sea grass and wood so rotten that it looked as if it should be crumbling to pieces. The shelf of coral caught on the side of the ship, and after a few seconds of ear-piercing screeching, it tore away from the rock it had been holding on to with a sickening _crack_. And just like that, the underwater ship was gone, rising up towards the surface again, leaving terror and destruction in its wake.

The last sea creature, a small messenger dolphin that stayed to witness the incident, fled the area to alert Poseidon.

The rest of the animals never returned.

* * *

"Coralena!"

The young mermaid winced at the tone of her mother's voice and lowered her head.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Wincing again, the girl lifted her gaze. Her grey eyes met ones of furious green.

"_What_ have you done to your_ hair_?!" her mother exclaimed. Reaching forward, she yanked on a golden-brown lock to make a better point.

Lena grit her teeth so as not to make a noise and pulled away. "Nothing," she muttered sullenly, looking away again. Her hand reached up of its own accord to run through her recently sun-streaked brown hair. Her mother did not miss the action.

"_This_ is not nothing!" she stated, pointing an accusatory finger at her daughter.

"I just wanted to see-" Lena didn't even get through the first sentence her half-hearted attempt at defending herself before the older mermaid launched into a lecture.

"You are the daughter of Poseidon, the demi-God of the sea! In case you have _forgotten_, we wouldn't be living here if it weren't for Calypso's imprisonment! We are in the middle of a crisis involving the pirates that know these seas almost as well as we do, and yet you decide to put that sea-weed juice in your hair and go to the _Surface_, no doubt for at least a day! And where has your hair all gone? A mermaid does not cut her hair! You're eighteen years old, Coralena, you were going so well! It used to be halfway down your tail!" She swum closer and miserably inspected the girl's hair.

Lena sighed exasperatedly, and pulled away again in irritation. "It's not that short," she said, trying to sound reasonable rather than annoyed, and failing miserably.

"Don't speak to me in that tone, young lady," her mother cried, almost as if reading her thoughts.

The teenager lost her patience.

"It's not that short," she yelled. "It's still down to my bloody backside-"

"-Coralena!"

"-and it was getting in the way all the time! You won't let me put it up, and it _always_ gets tangled when I try and get to the brig, _and_ the hull,and even the Captain's Cabin! I couldn't go _anywhere_ on the_ Pearl _with hair that long, and now it's shorter, I might be able to! You can't just say that . . . that . . . I-I didn't . . . I, uh . . . well, you see mother . . ." Her voice trailed away into nothing, and all that was left is a painful silence and her mother's disapproving glare.

"The _Pearl_?" she hissed after a full minute.

Lena said nothing, and waited for the bomb to explode.

_Boom._

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DANGEROUS THOSE SHIPWRECKS ARE? SOMETHING COULD FALL ON YOU AT ANY SECOND, AND YOU COULD BE _KILLED_! THERE IS _NOTHING_ TO BE GAINED FROM EXPLORING SHIPWRECKS! THEY ARE _MAN-MADE_, ANDWE ARE CURRENTLY AT WAR WITH MEN! HOW DARE YOU-"

"At _war_?!" Lena burst out.

"DON'T INTERRUPT-"

Lena shook her head furiously. "This _war_ that we're in the middle of hardly even _qualifies_ as a war! How many merfolk have died in battle in the past decade? No, don't even bother, I'll answer for you - _none_. We are _safe_. Only the most elite of our race have been planning with father on how to get Calypso back, and even _you _don't know those plans. How can you say we're at war when you don't even know the details of what's going on? I'll do what I bloody want, and there's nothing you can say or do to stop-"

A hand connected hard with her cheek, and her head flew to the side, where she let it stay, a shocked expression on her face. Her mother had _never_ slapped her before. _Something's wrong_. And for one, horrible moment, it was all she could think. Then the older mermaid spoke again, and the thought was gone. _She's just being unfair_, Lena grumbled to herself, swimming to her room as ordered.

The pair of nurse sharks guarding the double doors sensed her bad mood and took their job to a more respectful distance down the hallway, still able to protect the room but at the same time, giving her some privacy.

Lena's always gotten on well with the nurses.

Slamming the doors behind her, she swum straight to the bed of soft coral in the corner of the room and flung herself onto it with a groan of exasperation. About a minute passed before she became extremely bored with sulking and got up to move over to the full length mirror, her mouth twisting in distaste at what she saw.

Grey eyes, a slender nose, skin that was much browner than most merfolk, a result of all the time she'd spent near the Surface. Wavy brown - _and gold_, she reminded herself quickly - hair that fell to her hips, high cheekbones, small hands, breasts that were slightly larger than the average mermaid's, covered with a loose-fitting, sleeveless top that she made from one of the worn out, ebony sails of the _Pearl_, cut off a couple of inches underneath her breasts, so that her belly was still showing like most Mer. Her tail was one that fanned out into an angelfish-like fin at the end, silvery-green in colour. Perhaps, to humans, she would seem beautiful, flawless even. But in the world of Mer, where pale skin was a symbol of perfection, curvy figures were looked down upon, eyes were supposed to be green or blue, tails should be coloured in shades of pink, blue, purple, crimson and gold, and most people's hair was either light blonde, red or dark, dark brown, she knew she would never be regarded as beautiful. _The King's ugly duckling_, she thought bitterly to herself, remembering a human story she heard on one of her earlier explorations to the Surface.

Muttering irritably to herself, and mindlessly realising that she must sound mad, Lena whirled away from the mirror and retrieved her shoulder bag from the corner that she dumped it in that morning. It was one that she'd made of tightly woven sea-grass with a long shoulder strap, leaving the bag to trail next to her right hip when she swam. A string of black and silver pearls was sewn around the top edge of the bag. Looking at it, Lena realised that the bag was a bit like herself - different, odd, but beautiful if one saw it in the right way. Reaching inside it, she took out a short dagger with a bejewelled hilt and a thin, leather belt with a sheath attached that she found on a drowned female. She wrapped the belt around the top of her tail and sheathed the dagger, giving the room a quick scan and telepathically telling the sharks outside that they'd better not give her away before swimming out of the hole in the palace wall that she made behind her bed.

The wreck of the old ship, the _Black Pearl,_ had been a refuge of hers ever since she found it, when she was just ten years old. Despite it being clearly naught but a shadow of it's former self, Lena had been mesmerised at the very name from the moment she saw it. As she swam towards it, some of the anger that she harboured towards her mother dissipated, leaving her feeling hollow and empty, half-heartedly trying to convince herself that the Queen deserved all the trouble she got. However, a teenage girl can only delude herself for so long, and by the time the shipwreck was in sight, Lena had begrudgingly admitted to herself that her mother was just a tired mermaid who was getting too old for the job, with her people's best interests at heart. These interests just unfortunately happened to be very different to _her_ interests.

Pushing these troubling thoughts to the back of her mind for the moment, Lena gave a ferocious thrust of her tail, speeding forwards as fast as she could until she finally reached the _Pearl_. Grinning openly, she made her usual way through a large cannon-ball hole in the starboard side of the ship which opened into the place that she knew would have been the sailor's sleeping quarters. Some of the hammocks were still hanging limply from nails sticking out of the wood, so real that she could almost hear the loud snores, the tossing and the turning, the occasional soft padding of footsteps as a man rolled out of bed and up to the deck to try and escape his secret nightmares. Oh, she may have been a mermaid. But she had heard the stories. She had swum alongside ships in the dead of night, had seen a lone sailor throw himself overboard, crying out words of love for his long-lost family. Terrible things, ones that mer people should never see, especially after the capture of Calypso . . . but she'd seen them anyway.

Swimming on, fighting back the surprisingly strong wave of sadness that washed over her at the sight of the sleeping quarters, she excitedly weaved her way through a complex cluster of fallen planks of wood, crusted with barnacles, slimy with algae. She'd never been able to get through here before, because of her annoyingly long hair, but since she'd cut it, the path was fairly easy, and she carefully pushed through the planks until she got to the other side. This was one of the few parts of the ship that she had never explored before, and as she made her way through a hole in the floor, down to the last level that housed the brig, she couldn't stop the little shiver of anticipation at the thought of the new treasures she might find. Of course, she reminded herself, humans kept their _prisoners_ in the brig, so there probably wouldn't be anything shiny. But in Lena's books, the definition of interesting didn't contain the word shiny, and that's all that mattered to her.

_**Please review!**_

_**CJS xxx**_


	2. The Flying Dutchman

Slamming both hands against one of the barred doors, Lena huffed in frustration. _Of course_, she thought to herself, _the only cell containing anything of interest has to be the only cell with a door not swinging open on its hinges._ Gritting her teeth, she wrapped her slender fingers around two of the bars and yanked it towards her, but to no avail. Giving up for the moment, she let herself sink to the floor, lying on her belly and folding her hands under her chin, gazing at the object of her wrapt attention, a worn, leather tri-corn hat, still in prime condition, untouched by the years it had spent under the Ocean. It was precariously balanced upon a rotting, wooden cabinet, suspended just a moment away from falling.

It fascinated her.

Mer folk didn't typically wear hats - they had no need for them. As such, Lena immediately found herself desperately wanting to touch the aforementioned hat with her own hands, rather than just gazing upon it as an outsider. Frustration took over her again after a few moments of peace, and she rose up from the floor, slamming her tail into the bars as if in the hopes of getting some sort of reaction.

A piece of wood fell from the ceiling.

Being under the water, it fell slowly, drifting towards the floor. Lena paid it no attention, instead reaching through the bars and stretching her fingers out as far as she could, trying to get to the hat. Only when the plank of wood shifted suddenly downwards and landed heavily on her shoulder did she pay it any mind.

Crying out in pain and shock, she quickly pulled backwards, trying to get away from the thick splinter that was cutting into her skin. This only served to push it in deeper, and she let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a grunt as she lifted her other arm to shove the main bit of wood down to the floor. When it had settled, she turned her attention to getting out of the _Pearl_ without injuring herself further. Swimming upwards, she made her way back through the maze of planks, up to the sleeping quarters and back through the large hole in the side of the ship. Weak from shock, she swam over to a nearby rock and lowered herself down on it. The sharp wood had torn her makeshift top, and she tore it away unhappily. She didn't really need it; scales curled up her sides and around to cover her chest from the rest of the world while she was in the water, but she went up to the Surface so often, that she could never really be bothered to take it off. And she felt safer with it on, protected by the little bit of the Surface that she could carry around with her.

Looking down at her shoulder, she winced. The shard of wood was the length of her hand and as thick as her little finger. Reaching for the torn material that used to be her shirt, she tore it into long strips, balling one up and shoving it in her mouth biting down hard before wrapping her hand around the piece of wood and yanking it out of her shoulder.

Her cries of pain muffled by the material in her mouth, she let the sea water clean the hole in her skin before hurriedly picking up a strip of black material. Reaching out with her mind, she located a pod of dolphins that she knew nearby and called out to them for help. Before long, they had arrived, one of the mother dolphins swimming towards her and taking the end of the material in her mouth. With the dolphin's help, the injury was soon bandaged, the blood stopped.

_Thank you_, she murmured to the dolphins in her mind.

Their leader bowed, the others following suit. _Princess_, he acknowledged. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and a ripple of laughter went through the pod, but their leader was not finished talking. _Why are you not at the palace?_

She shook her head in confusion. _I hate the palace. Surely you knew that._

The leader nodded his head in agreement, and she could feel his eyes smiling. _Of course, your majesty. But is there not a special event going on today? One that I believe your cousin is the centre of?_

Lena slapped a hand to her forehead. "No!" she exclaimed out loud. _How could I have forgotten? Are you on your way there?_ The pod nodded their confirmation. _May I . . . ?_ She left the end of the request open for interpretation, and the dolphins took it the right way, as she knew they would.

_It would be an honour, Princess._

Even following behind the dolphins and being pulled forwards in their slipstream, she barely made it in time. Thanking them hurriedly, she swam as fast as she could to her room, throwing her draw open and scrabbling around inside it for her healing stone. Ripping the bandages off her arm, she pressed it to the wound and tried not to scream as the muscles and skin joined themselves together again, leaving a dark, lumpy scar at the top of her arm.

Somewhere in the palace, an orchestra began to play.

Swearing, Lena flew to her bed, scrambling underneath it for the silver crown that she was requested to wear at ceremonies. Pulling it out, she ducked over to the mirror, trying to arrange her tangled hair in a way that looked somewhat respectable while still covering the scar on her arm. She placed the horrendously beautiful crown upon her head, looped a string of pearls around her neck, and burst out of the room to rush down to the concert hall.

She could practically feel her mother's glare as she took her usual place next to her older sister, but she ignored it and pretended to focus on the orchestra that was still playing. Beside her, Evangeline pinched her tail.

"Where in the name of Calypso have you been?" she hissed under her breath.

"None of your business," Lena hissed back. She sensed her sister shaking her perfect, blonde head without having to look.

"Oh no, don't you dare give me that. Mother is furious! How could you-"

"Evie!" she cut in before her sister could continue in her whispered shout. She painted the most infuriatingly innocent and sincere expression onto her face, one that she knew would annoy Evangeline to the point of tearing her hair out. "You're interrupting the ceremony, Evie! Dear Alexander is about to get his award!" Sure enough, there he was, the stuck-up cousin that she had always held a personal grudge against making his way to the stage in time with the music which had finally come to its end. Lena and Evangeline ignored each other in favour of watching their father hand Alexander a golden trident and medal as a reward for some sort of service.

"Use this trident wisely," the king was saying in his rich, deep voice, "not to achieve your own ends, but for the greater good of the people you serve. From now on . . ." Lena zoned out as he droned on, pretending to fall asleep on her sister's shoulder. The older mermaid shrugged her off with a noise of disgust. She grinned.

When the ceremony was over, everyone swam from their seats down to the main hall for a banquet. The orchestra continued to play throughout the meal, and Lena went off to talk to her father, escaping her fuming sister and mother in the process. She found him discussing the principles of Ocean magic with her uncle and a few other officials. Rolling her eyes, she swam towards the group of serious adults and positioned herself underneath them, in the centre of their circle, already planning the best way to interrupt their conversation.

"Hello, daddy!" she squealed, zooming up and suddenly appearing in the middle of the group. The other Mer folk jumped, but the king merely raised an eyebrow at her. She made a face of disappointment, and flung her arms around his neck. "Aren't you happy to see me, daddy?" She could almost _feel _the disapproving looks burning into her back. After a moment of awkward silence, she moved away from her father with a bright smile on her face. "I'm happy to see _you_!" she exclaimed.

More silence.

At last, her father spoke.

"You cut your hair." It was a statement, not a question, one that made Lena's fake expression of excitement fall away immediately.

She nodded. "Yes, father."

He frowned, and opened his mouth, no doubt to lecture her as her mother had, but was interrupted.

"Your Majesty!"

The lines in his forehead deepening, Poseidon tilted his face upwards to face the guard at one of the top entrances. The Mer man was waving his trident, frantically trying to get everyone's attention. He yelled something in their direction, but none of them heard over the commotion.

"SILENCE," Poseidon thundered. A hush fell over the crowd.

"EVERYONE CLEAR OUT," the guard yelled. "IT'S THE FLYING DU-"

Chaos took over as a monstrous ship crashed through the delicate coral wall of the concert hall, sending shards raining down on the Mer folk below. The guests scattered in all directions, some screaming, some assembling with the guards to fight. The ship was crewed by scores of sea monsters, all cackling and calling for Mer blood, brandishing swords and pikes and all sorts of remorseless pieces of metal designed for killing.

Lena was entranced.

At the helm of the ship, a monster with a beard of tentacles and cruelty in his eyes who was clearly the captain called for quiet. The Mer stopped their frantic escape, trembling while the crewmen stopped their threats. Out of nowhere, Poseidon suddenly appeared, floating right in front of the helm of the cursed ship, trident in hand. "What is your purpose here?" His voice was deep, calming, and the braver Mer folk in the crowd straightened up a little.

"I seek a ship-a," the captain snarled, "one that I know lies nearby this flimsy fortress." His crew laughed. "The _Black Pearl_."

Lena jolted visibly, and looked down. The action was not missed.

"You," the captain murmured, looking past Poseidon and towards the young girl. "You know of this ship." She tried to look away, but found herself paralysed. The captain gave a cruel smile. "You know of its whereabouts, do you not?" She shook her head. An invisible hand locked around her neck, and when she looked up again, she was hovering directly above the captain, his claw locked around her throat. She wrapped her hands around it in an attempt to pry it away, but to no avail. One of his tentacles rose up and moved a lock of hair away from her neck before coming to rest on her collarbone. She gave a silent scream as the stinging rings burned into her skin. "_Liar_," he hissed. "You'd get along well with a good friend of mine. Jack Sp-"

"Jones!" the King's voice thundered. "Release her!"

Looking past Lena, Jones grimaced and threw her away from him. She slammed into the railing of the ship and gasped, drawing breaths as fast as she could. Looking down at the patch of skin between her shoulder and her neck, she shuddered at the sight of the swollen, red circles that marred the usually even colour.

"The girl comes with us," Jones was saying. "She'll lead us to the ship, and then she will be released."

Poseidon shook his head in refusal. Jones tilted his head.

"Do not test me, Your_ Majesty_," he growled.

"She is not going anywhere!"

Jones gave a cold smile and drew his sword. "Oh, but she is, Poseidon-a. You don't have a choice."

_**REPLIES TO REVIEWS**_

**TheHowlingBlueWolf: **_**Thanks heaps, that means so much! Yeah, hope this chapter was okay ;P Thanks for the review, they make me smile :)**_

**Luna543:**_** Haha, thanks, yeah, she's really pretty, but not in mermaid terms, unfortunately for her.**_

_**Reviews are love :)**_

_**CJS xxx**_


	3. Broken and Healed

_**I apologise in advance for the short length of this chapter. However, it is a big turning point, so I hope that makes up for it. Thanks to all the people who favourited/followed/reviewed this story, it means so much! Review replies after A.N. at the end of the chapter. Enjoy!**_

Lena twisted the heavy metal cuffs that locked her wrists behind her back, so rough that they chaffed the skin beneath them to the point of excruciating pain. The bruises around her neck were turning purple, and the sting on her collarbone was swelling more and more each minute. A thin cut ran along her right cheek, courtesy of a sharp backhand from one of the captain's right hand men. _Or monsters_, she thought with a wry smile.

Perhaps she had overestimated her father's power as a demi-god. Or perhaps she had just overestimated his love for her.

A rough fin shoved her in the back, and she fell forwards, almost smashing her head on the railing of the ship, stopped only by Jones' claw. "This is it, then?" he asked her. She raised her head, and her heart cracked at what she saw.

The magnificent wreck of her beloved _Pearl_ was sitting just twenty yards away, blissfully unable to foresee whatever was about to happen to her. Torn, ebony sails floated in the soft current, the history-soaked wood continued to rot away steadily, following the course of nature as if it wasn't about to be destroyed by the cannons of the most feared ship in all the Seven Seas.

Lena couldn't look away.

"Yes," she whispered. Jones' claw locked around her throat, forcing her face to turn and look at him.

"Is this the ship?" he said forcefully.

"Yes," she cried. He pushed her head away and moved to the wheel.

"Her Majesty and I will go aboard. The rest of you . . ." He looked around and smiled. "Keep the ship out of the way." Lena shuddered as a slimy tentacle wrapped around the top of her arm, not stinging her, but enough to make her cringe with fear. She began to swim alongside Jones, but the moment she blinked, she found herself on the ship. She looked around wildly.

"How did you do that?" she gasped.

He looked at her incredulously. "Magic, your highness. Surely you've heard of it before?" She didn't answer, suddenly finding it hard to breath as she looked around the room they were in. A large, four-poster bed was slumped beneath a broken, stained-glass window on the left-hand side of the room. In the corner was a stunning, blackwood desk, scattered with fallen candles and disintegrating sheets of parchment which had probably depicted maps and letters at one point, but were now so waterlogged that there was nothing left but inky smudges. Sea-smoothed glass was scattered everywhere, along with bits of material that would have once been clothes or bed sheets. She turned back to Jones.

"This is the captain's cabin." It was not a question, but he nodded anyway. She gave a short laugh of disbelief. "I've been trying to get in here for years." The tentacle around her arm tightened a little as she started to drift towards the bed, and as she looked downwards, something in Jones' claw caught her eye. "Where did you get that?" she demanded, nodding towards the leather tri-corn hat that he held.

He eyed her suspiciously. "Below," he growled.

She gave a wordless nod, and there was silence until she couldn't bear it any longer. "What are you going to do to her?" she begged.

Moving his tentacle away from her arm, Jones began to pace towards the desk. "This ship belonged to a pirate named Charles Sparrow. He was a well-known captain, with a well-known ship. His methods were odd, for a pirate. He tried to minimise his killing when taking another ship, and often took hostages, only to leave them on an island that was near a frequently travelled trade route, so that the men would not be left to die." There was a silence that made Lena uneasy. "I sunk his ship." He continued talking over the girl's cry of horror. "His wife was left with a son, who in turn grew up and became a pirate. He then had a son whom he named Jack Sparrow, a man who has become the Pirate Lord of the Caribbean, a man who has been a pain in my side for near four years. Recently, he came to me and requested that I raise the _Pearl_ from the depths and name him Captain of it for thirteen years. When this time is up, he has agreed to a hundred years of servitude aboard the _Dutchman_." Lena shuddered. She didn't know why he was telling her all this, and she had no idea who this Jack Sparrow man was, but her heart ached for the fate that he had chosen for himself. _He must really love the _Pearl _to give up his soul like that_, she mused. When she looked up again, Jones was standing right in front of her. She jumped. "You have your answers," he snarled. "Now you must pay the price-a!" Her eyes widened in fear, and she tried to swim away, but his tentacles were already twined around her arm, this time stinging her. She tried not to scream.

"That's not fair!" she gasped. "You didn't tell me there was a penalty!"

Jones gave a cold smile. "Life is not fair." He dragged her over to the broken bed and locked one of her handcuffs around a post. "And neither am I." Striding to the centre of the room, he raised both arms above his head, and his tentacles began to writhe. "By the power bestowed upon me by the Great Sea Goddess, Calypso, I hereby give ye, _The Black Pearl_ permission to rise! Rise to the Surface, may your broken soul be healed! You cannot be sunk until I, Davy Jones, who dares to command this power, sinks you myself!" Sea water began to whirl around the ship, until they were locked in the eye of the horrific fury of the Ocean. "I give you this poor Mer soul as a sacrifice! Take her now-" Lena screamed and shook with the dry sobs that wracked her entire frame - "with you to the Surface, and may she be transformed as you are!" He turned, and through the debris that as flying everywhere in the furious current, Lena felt his cold eyes burning into her, cruel and terrifying. "By the wind and the waves, by the tides and the gods, I condemn you." He grinned. "May the world have mercy on your soul." And she closed her eyes, knowing that when she next opened them, he would be gone.

A tremor ran through the ship. Her tail felt heavy and useless, even as she pulled away from the post that she was cuffed to with all her might. She knew that usually she would be able to break through it easily, but this was far from normal. Something in Davy Jones' spell was keeping her there, and she couldn't do anything about it.

From the centre of the room, the tri-corn hat lifted itself up, flew towards her, and landed upon her head. Lena's eyes opened.

All around, the ship was repairing itself. Sea-smoothed shards of glass became sharp and clear again before flying towards the shattered window frame and joining together as one. The scraps of material stitched themselves together and folded into the chest of drawers that was suddenly even and polished. The bed straightened up, twisting her arm painfully as it did so, and she cried out for help, a cry which was abruptly cut off when she felt the ship begin to rise.

Slowly at first, but getting faster and faster as it gained momentum, the _Pearl_ seemed to be falling in reverse, continuing to repair itself as it rose. Lena was too shocked to make a sound, watching with terrified eyes as her ears popped with the rapid changes of water pressure. Squinting out the window, she saw it getting lighter outside, and her breathing increased as she realised that the water in the room was gushing out of the still open door. The ship rocked violently, and undiluted sunlight flooded through the window, blinding her only momentarily because she was so used to it. Her breathing rate became dangerously close to hyperventilation as the last of the water trickled out the door. It slammed shut, and she listened to the sound of water rushing out of the lower levels. At last, there was silence, nothing but the gentle movement of the ship bobbing up and down on the surface.

Lena trembled as the last of the moisture on her skin and tail began to dry up. She'd heard stories of what happened to a mermaid if they were brought out of the water completely, all so varied that she didn't know which to believe. Her chest heaved, she thought she saw movement in the scales that covered her breasts, but it was such a slight flicker, that she couldn't be sure. The last droplet of salty Ocean soaked into the bed sheets below her, a sharp stab of unbearable pain went shooting through her tail, and the screaming began.

_**Okay, so I know that this was a really, REALLY short chapter, but Jack comes in in the next one, so you can look forward to that. Also, a pre-warning, her transformation from mermaid to human is VERY different to that in the forth movie. Please review, the more I get, the faster I write!**_

_**CJS xxx**_

_**REVIEW REPLIES!**_

**TheShireOfAsgard:**_** Thanks, that means so much! I love writing, it's so great to hear that someone likes it!**_

**BlooperLover:**_** Sorry, not in this chapter! But keep reviewing like that, and the next one will be up soon!**_

**TheHowlingBlueWolf:**_** Haha, thank you! Yep, next chapter!**_

**LittleVampirateXX:**_** OH MY CALYPSO, SO AM I! Thanks honey, your advice means the world :) however, it isn't a Little Mermaid/POTC crossover - Lena most definitely CAN talk ;P and a lot more will happen to her than what happened to Arial, so be excited! Oh, devs for you :/ and thanks for your update! I will reply to your email at the end of next week, sorry for the delay, exams are being a poo.**_

**SaskiaWillow1201:**_** Thanks so much, hope you liked the chapter!**_

**Cara:**_** Yeah, me too, you're absolutely right, her story is one to be excited for.**_

**LadyAmazon:**_** Here you go!**_


	4. Two Pearls

_**Hiiiii guyyyyyyys . . . So yeah. I AM SO SORRY! You can blame school, and exams, and damn stupid study! I know I left you on a cliffhanger, and I'm sorry for not updating sooner! I will try, but I need you to know now that even though it is the holidays, I'm not one of those people that updates every day. I honestly can't write that fast. I'm terribly prone to the horrific disease of Writer's Block. But reviews do help to cure that! So keep 'em coming! Haha, sorry again, but this is a fairly long chapter, so please, ENJOY!**_

Jack grinned as he took in his surroundings. As creepy and back-stabbing as Jones was, he knew how to bring things back from the dead alright. Even if the thing he'd brought back hadn't actually qualified as living in the first place. Which the _Black Pearl_ had, in Jack's mind. Striding confidently across the deck towards the helm, he eyed the wheel with reverence. How his hands itched to take hold of it, to have complete control over the ship he was made for. _Of course_, he thought to himself,_ a crew could come in handy at some point._ Tortuga it was then. Or better still, if the dead crew men were suddenly brought back to life. _That's a tad creepy . . . must have been hanging around Jones for too long._

At long last, he stood before the gloriously black wheel of the _Pearl_, her entire being at his complete disposal. He gazed at the decks, imagining them full of crew men rushing about and tending to the jobs that needed to be tended to, before pushing away the complication of how he was going to actually _get_ to Tortuga, and focusing his attention on the wheel again. Lifting a hand and relishing the time that he had, he reached out towards it, already imagining the roughness beneath his fingers, the feeling that he had waited to have for so long-

A blood-curdling scream shattered the moment.

Jack whirled towards the sound. It was a scream like he had never heard before, one filled with pain, horror, desperation, and beneath it all, a cold, single-minded fear. Without a second thought, he rushed towards the source of the sound, which seemed to be coming from the captain's cabin located just above the helm. Climbing the stairs hurriedly, he reached inside his overcoat for the key that Jones had handed him before disappearing under the sea. He had to jam it in the lock several times before it actually clicked in, and by that time, the screams had gotten under his skin. His hands shook at the thought of what he might find in the room, but before he could dwell over it too much, the key twisted in the lock and the door fell open.

At first, his eyes were darting around the room so wildly that he missed the creature lying on the floor next to the large four-poster bed. The blinds covering the main window made the room so dark that he could only see the outline of her, but he knew what she was immediately.

Most men would have either left the room as fast as they possibly could, or waited for the transformation to be complete so that they could have their way with the mermaid turned human. Jack, however, digressed that he was certainly _not_ most men, and was therefore entitled to do something a little out of the ordinary. This being the case, he moved over to the window and pulled the blinds apart, allowed the sunlight to stream in and fall upon the creature before kneeling down beside her head and pulling it into his lap.

The beautiful face was twisted in pain, the mouth still open in that unbearably terrified scream. The scales that covered her chest were almost completely gone, ripping themselves further out of her skin by the second, and although this was undoubtedly one source of her pain, the main was obviously the grotesque lower half of her body.

Part tail and part legs, the writing mass of scales and exposed muscle and bone was so twisted and wrong that Jack felt sick. Bile rose up in his throat and he gagged, trying to keep the contents of his stomach down. By the time the nausea had subsided, the red human muscle was steadily being covered with skin the same colour as the rest of her body. The scales were almost all gone, and the main fin had divided into a pair of slender feet. Tiny ankles formed, followed by shapely calves, then knees, then thighs. The screaming reached a deafening crescendo, and in a slight moment of panic, Jack managed to force his eyes away before the transformation was complete.

Finally, there was silence.

Opening first one eye, then the other, Jack found his gaze not drawn the girl's chest like it was with most women, not drawn to the flat of her stomach or the area between her legs. Rather, his eyes focused upon her closed ones, and he found himself idly wondering if they were going to open any time soon.

As more and more time passed, it became clear that it wasn't going to happen. In fact, as his attention began to wander, he became acutely aware of how still she was in his arms. Alarmed, he lowered her head to the floor and pulled off first his waistcoat, then shirt, using the second item of clothing to cover the most crucial parts of her body. Kneeling beside her, he bent down so that his ear was over her mouth, and felt nothing.

Straightening again, he eased his hands into the space in between her breasts and began to pump down on her chest repeatedly, pausing with every thirty beats to meet her lips with his own and breath air into her lungs. _This would be a lot more enjoyable if she was awake,_ he mused. A rhythm was built of him regulating his own breathing, listening for hers, on and on and on, until suddenly, her eyes flew open.

Stormy grey in colour, they met his dark brown ones immediately. He stopped pounding on her chest and sat back on his heels, breathing heavily from the effort of keeping her alive for so long. Her mouth opened, and she gasped for air, rolling on her side to cough up blood and salt water. Wracking sobs filled the room, and he looked away, knowing that there was nothing he could do to ease her pain. _How the bloody hell does a mermaid of all things manage to get stuck in a shipwreck the very day it rises to the surface again? Mermaids can swim!_ At last, she stopped coughing, and he forced himself to stand up.

"You alright, love?" he muttered. No answer. _Fair enough_. "Gave me a scare, alright," he continued, walking over to the chest of drawers in the corner. "I've heard of mermaids transforming before, but I'll admit, I never thought it would be something like that." A whimper from the other side of the room made him drop his façade, and he moved back over to her. "You alright, love?" he said again. His shirt fell away from her torso, and he cleared his throat in embarrassment, but she clearly didn't notice as she lifted a trembling hand and pointed towards the bed. He followed the line of her finger, and jumped at what he saw.

Handcuffs. One locked around her wrist, the other around the bed post, trapping her with her arm twisted in such a way that she must have been lying on the bed at one stage before falling off in her pain. A string of swollen red sting marks curled around the same arm and over a collarbone, and a necklace of bruises garnished her throat. A thin cut ran along one of her cheeks, the skin beneath which was turning purple from inner bleeding. A lump formed in Jack's throat as he wordlessly fit the key that had opened the door of the cabin into the lock of the handcuffs. It was a perfect fit.

"Jones did this to you," he said in a hoarse voice. She nodded. He looked away. "I'm so sorr-" A fist connected hard with his jaw, knocking him backwards slightly. The girl tried to stand up, only to have her legs crumple beneath her and he leapt forwards, catching her on impulse. Forcing himself to look away from her naked body, he picked her up and placed her gently down on the bed, drawing the covers up to cover her before moving to stand a safe yard away. There was a pause.

"I don't think I deserved that," he said, grinning slightly despite his painful tone of voice.

She did not smile back, but managed to utter her first words since becoming human. "This is your fault." He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut across him before he could speak. "You're Jack Sparrow!" Again, he lifted a finger to correct her mistake, but she kept speaking. He frowned. "You're Jack Sparrow," she sobbed. A tear rolled down her cheek, and she lifted a finger to wipe it away delicately, raising it to eye level for examination. "What is this?" she whispered. More tears fell, and as Jack watched, his initial amusement at the question slowly faded as she tried to catch each teardrop. Finally, it became too much for him to bear, and he moved over to sit beside her on the bed, reaching forward and cupping her face, wiping away the tears with his thumbs before moving his hands away again and folding them in his lap.

"You're crying, love," he told her gently, meeting her desperate gaze with a small smile. "It's quite common with female humans. Happens when they get sad. Or angry. Or just super emotional, I think."

She looked puzzled. "Don't men cry?" she asked quietly.

Jack frowned, a little taken aback. "Only if they're really, _really_ emotional." There was a pause. "But that doesn't happen to me, so no worries." He grinned, and this time received a half-smile in return, which lasted for about a second before she looked down and began crying again. "No, no, don't do that," Jack said, jumping up. "I don't actually know how to deal with crying girls very well, the first time was a special case." She didn't answer, but the sobs got louder, and he gritted his teeth, trying to stay reasonable. "What's the matter, darling?" he said over the crying. She choked out a couple of words, but he couldn't understand. "What was that?"

"It . . . hurts," she managed to gasp out, and at this, Jack stopped pretending to be indifferent, sitting back down on the bed beside her.

"What hurts?" he asked urgently. "Quickly now, we need to make sure you're okay. What hurts?"

Reaching forwards, the mermaid-turned-human grabbed a fistful of the blankets and pulled them away from her lower body, exposing herself from the waist down. Jack tried to stop his mouth from dropping open, but to no avail, something that the girl clearly didn't notice. She sat up, thankfully keeping her torso covered, and moved her hands down to her feet. Tentatively, she bent her toes backwards and forwards, ignoring how Jack had suddenly gone from cocky and open to awkward and shifty in the space of a second. Satisfied that her feet were completely normal, she moved her fingers up her calves, curiously prodding at the smooth skin. When she reached her knees, she rubbed at the prominent bone, as if wondering what it was doing there. Giving up on discovering any time soon, her hands moved swiftly up past the midpoint of her legs, moving around to her inner thighs, getting dangerously close to-

Leaping into action, Jack jumped up and yanked the covers back over her. She looked up at him in surprise, studying his flushed cheeks and bright eyes. "What hurts?" he asked again. His voice was dangerously low, so much that she shied away from him, like a horse from a snake. She shook her head slightly. "What's hurts?" he half-shouted at her.

Crying out in fear, she scrambled over to the other side of the bed, shaking. "Th-these things," she said quickly, gesturing towards the lower half over her body that she had just exposed so shamelessly to him. "They h-hurt, and I don't know w-what to do . . . I d-don't even know what they are, really . . ."

All at once, the anger rushed out of him, and he was left with a horrible feeling of guilty understanding. _She's a bloody MERMAID, Jacky, she's never had a downstairs area before, of COURSE she doesn't know what it's for. She doesn't even know how to walk! Bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger. How does one explain this?_ "Uh," he started, and cringed inwardly. _Great start._ He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "You'll have to bear with me, love. I've never done this before. But I apologise in advance for any other stupid mistakes that I make in the near or far future, savvy?"

She continued to look at him like he was a mad axe murderer.

He sighed again, and sat down on the bed for the third time, this time crossing his legs in front of him, almost blushing at what he was about to explain. "There's just . . . certain parts of the body that you can't show anyone else," he began, nervously clasping his hands together in front of him. "Legs-" he lifted up one of his own as a demonstration- "are usually fine, in my opinion, but most people wear long trousers-" again, he gestured to his own to show what he was talking about- "or dresses, if you're a girl. But, here-" He stopped, by this point looking awkward beyond belief. The fearful look in the girl's eyes had disappeared, replaced by one of curiosity. There was a pause.

_Bugger, how do I say this?_

"Where?" she said after a while. Still, the silence went on.

At last, Jack decided on the blunt approach. "Between your legs," he muttered, looking away. "Right up . . . where you're legs stop. No one is allowed to see that. It's . . . not proper. Same with your . . ." This time, he pointed towards her as an example. "Your chest. It has to be covered."

At this, she blushed, and rolled her eyes. "I know _that._ You'd have to be stupid not to know that."

He could only gape at her for a few moments, before he realised that he must highly resemble one of the fishies that she had been sharing a home with up till not-so-long-ago, and upon this realisation, snapped his mouth shut immediately. "Of course," he muttered. Yet another silence followed, and he spoke up again before it got too incredibly awkward. "Look," he said, meeting her wide-eyed gaze, "how about we just start over." He held out his hand for her to shake, and with a shy smile, she took it. "_Captain_ Jack Sparrow," he emphasised. "And you are?"

"Everyone down there called me Coralena."

He wrinkled his nose. "That's a long name."

Gripping his hand is a surprisingly firm shake, the girl's smile broadened, her first real smile since he had set eyes on her. "But you can call me Lena."

_Lena . . . that I can deal with._

_**Review Replies!**_

**LadyAmazon:**_** Haha, hope you liked the epicness of this one too!**_

**kagomesdance: **_**Wow, thanks so much!**_

**LittleVampirate:**_** Yes, that is what I was going for. Although jolly singing crabs ARE lots of fun. And no, as you can see from this chapter, he does not meet a dead fish. They are both very much alive. Haha, thanks! I was worried that I might have seemed a little OOC :/**_

**Cara:**_** Yes, he did disappear, sorry for the confusion. Yep, here he is at long last! Thanks for the review!**_

**SaskiaWillow1201: **_**I LOVE reviews, leave as many as you like! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**_

**BlooperLover:**_** Here you go!**_

**lilmissmessy: **_**Sorry for the long wait! Exams are over now though, so YAY!**_

**Guest:**_** Thank you so much! Haha, I love cookies!**_

_**SORRY about the awkwardness in that chapter, it sort of just wrote itself, haha.**_

_**Review? Pretty please?**_

_**CJS xxx**_


	5. Almost Predictably Impossible

_**Um . . . Hiiiiiiiii. GUYS, I AM SO SORRY! THE SCHOOL TOOK MY LAPTOP AWAY FOR THE WHOLE SUMMER HOLIDAYS, AND ALL MY STORIES WERE ON IT, AND I HAD TWO CHAPTERS ALREADY WRITTEN UP AND EDITED, AND I COULDN'T REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED, SO I COULDN'T REWRITE THEM, but it's okay now, because I HAVE MY LAPTOP BACK! YAY!**_

_**I am starting my senior years, however, so updates will not be frequent. Please bear with me though! I promise, I'm not giving up on this story. Love you guys :) Now enjoy the chapter!**_

_**Review replies below.**_

The moment Jack had pulled up the blinds and left the room to try and find some means of food, Lena tore away the covers, and catching sight of a full-sized looking glass in the corner of the room, turned so that she could study her new body. Her legs, as Jack called them, looked awkward and unnatural, but at the same time, seemed curvy enough to sort of fit in with the rest of her body. _At least they're the right colour_, she thought grimly, reaching down to touch the curiously smooth skin. It was odd, not feeling scales anywhere on her body, but she supposed that she would just have to get used to it. Turning slightly, she caught sight of the rounded part of her body between her upper legs and the curve of her back. At least that somehow resembled the way her tail used to look. However, taking a deep breath, she decided that it was high time she took a look at whatever had caused her saviour so much distress.

It was nothing remarkable, really, she thought as she cautiously spread her legs apart to look at the dark mass of curls that rested in between them. _Just more hair to deal with._ She sighed, and settled underneath the blankets again. It was lucky that she did, for the next moment, Jack knocked on the door, and without waiting for an answer, pushed into the room.

"Nothing," he grumbled as he did so. "Not a crumb of bread, not a drop of rum." As he made his way over to the chest of drawers and rifle through them, he proceeded to mutter under his breath about how useless Jones was, and Lena thought it wise not to remind him that the only reason he was captain of a ship was because of the monster. By the time he had cooled off, he had clearly found what he was looking for, and brought it over to her, dumping a pile of clothes on the bed. "They were me grandma's," he said by way of explanation. "Grandpa always used to keep a few sets just in case she decided to come abroad with him. They might be a bit old fashioned, and they're certainly not practical, but they'll do until we can find you new ones." With that, he stood, and unfolded a pale gold item that fell all the way to the floor. "It's a dress," Jack said. Holding the covers up to her chest with one hand and reaching out with the other, Lena cautiously ran her fingertips along the material. It was silky smooth, with a white lace bodice, as Jack pointed out when she touched it. He went on to describe the pale gold skirt, the creamy sleaves, the swirling, flowery gold décor that curved up from one side of the skirt, right around, and up over one shoulder.

It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

Satisfied that she had seen enough of the dress, Jack gestured towards the next item, motioning for her to pick it up herself. "It's the corset," he almost sighed. "I'm sorry you have to wear it, love, but it's all I've got. Come on now, turn around." Looking puzzled, Lena did as he asked. "Okay, now dropped the blanket." She turned to look at him incredulously.

"You just told me that I'm not allowed to show-"

"I'm not looking," he interrupted brusquely. There was a short pause before he muttered, "it's bad enough that you don't know how to do it yourself." Blushing heavily, Lena dropped the blanket. She watched as a pair of brown arms wrapped around the front of her body, pulling the corset tightly over her breasts. "Just . . . make sure you're comfortable," he said gruffly. Reaching up, she pulled at the stiff material until it wasn't so restricting. "Good?" he asked. She nodded wordlessly. "Alright, I'm just lacing it up."

His hands fiddled with the threads at the lower half of her back for a moment before yanking them so tight that she gasped. "Stop!" she cried out. He did, and waited while she caught her breath. "Do you even know what you're doing?" she asked after a few moments.

For some reason, Jack sounded amused when he said, "Of course! Undone plenty in my lifetime, why shouldn't I know how to do them up?"

It took a moment for her to register exactly what he had just told her, and by this time, he had threaded the next couple of holes and pulled the strings tight again, but not so much that she couldn't breath. Lena didn't speak for the rest of the endurance event, waiting impatiently for the troublesome item of clothing to be properly secured. At last, Jack had finished, and stood back.

"Alright, have a look in the mirror," he told her. She did, gaping at how much larger her breasts looked, but when she realised that Jack was gaping as well, she snapped her mouth shut and wrapped the blanket around her body again.

"These are women's underclothes," she said. It wasn't a question. "Is it a safe guess that men aren't allowed to see these either?" Jack's mouth twisted uncomfortably as he nodded, and held up the plain, cotton shift for her to look at.

"Put these on," he muttered, throwing her the underdress and a pair of what looked like underwear for her bottom half at her as well. "Let me know when you're ready for me to tie it up." With this, he moved over to the desk in the corner, and proceeded to rifle through its draws, pulling out maps and letters, a clear indication that she should hurry up and get dressed.

Not entirely sure of what to do, Lena picked up the underwear for her new legs. It was a fairly self-explanatory item of clothing, and as such, she soon found herself pulling it up over both legs and securing it around her waist. Next, she picked up the dress, and finding that the top half was similarly shaped to the top that she had worn while in the Ocean, pulled it over her head and pushed her arms through the sleeves, letting the skirt fall down. "Finished," she called out to Jack, and he moved back over to her, politely averting his gaze while he picked up the golden overdress.

Just before asking her to stand, he stopped. "Are you . . . are you certain that you won't change back if we put you in the water?" he asked, trying to be as gentle as possible. Sure enough, Lena's shy smile faded, and she looked down with tears in her eyes.

"There is no way," she said brokenly. "He cursed me as he cursed the ship."

A this, Jack put his hand under her chin and lifted her face so that she met his gaze. "Cursed the ship?" he asked anxiously.

Angry that the ship was of more value to him than she was, but knowing that in reality, she shouldn't be surprised, Lena tore her face away from his hand. "You really think this is a blessing, _Captain_?" she spat at him. "Jones told me everything, and when the time comes for you to give up your soul, you will know that you have been cursed, along with your precious _Pearl_." Almost immediately after the spiteful words had passed her lips, her anger evaporated, leaving her shaking with fear, terrified that she had taken it too far. He was a human, after all, and humans were well know for their cruelty.

However, Jack completely defied her expectations by laughing out loud. "Oh, darling, I've had as many dealings with Davy Jones as you've had with dolphins. I'll get out of this one easy, no worries." The smile remained on his face as he continued. "But if he's cursed you, then it looks like you're stuck as a human for the next thirteen years." He winked.

Lena shook her head in disbelief. "_What_?!" she cried out, shocking the man before her into blinking. "Thirteen _years_?! I'm a _mermaid_, I can't be stuck like this for years on end! By Calypso, I'll forget how to even swim!" In the space of a few seconds, her breathing rate had increased alarmingly, and she could feel that she was getting close to hyperventilation for the second time that day. Noticing, Jack knelt in front of her and took hold of her face in both hands.

"Breath," he said loudly, and the tone of his voice was so commanding that she could do nothing but obey. "Breath," he said again, softer this time, calmly, waiting patiently while she slowed down her intake of oxygen. When it seemed that she was okay again, he stood up. "I know a woman who might be able to undo your curse. Thick as thieves, she and I. The moment we've picked up a crew in Tortuga, we'll go find her, and see if we can sort you out." He flashed her the charming grin that she suddenly found herself used to, even though she had known him for no more than a couple of hours. "Don't lose hope, darling. We'll figure something out. I am, after all, Captain Jack Sparrow." And the smile became so contagious, that she found herself helpless to stop the small one forming on her own face.

The problem of teaching a mermaid how to walk had proved to be a task almost too complicated for even the famous Captain Jack Sparrow to take on. He had decided that it would be easier for her without the added weight of the overdress, and so she had left it off as he gently instructed her to put both her feet flat on the floor.

"That's the way," he said. "Now these muscles-" he touched her calves. "They're a bit like your lower tail. When you stand, these are the first muscles that you use, and then the rest sort of just comes." He took one of her legs in both hands. "Tense," he instructed.

"What?" she said.

Jack frowned. "This is going to be much harder than I thought," he muttered, standing up, and running a stressed hand over his face. He turned back to her, holding his hands out in front of him, as if using them to explain would help her to understand more. "You can tense your arm muscles, right?" he asked. She nodded, and did so as a demonstration. "Good," he nodded. "Now, can you try and do the same with your leg?" Kneeling down, he held on to it again. He felt the muscles in her leg seize up a little before relaxing again almost immediately, and gave her an encouraging smile. "That's it, have a go. Both legs now. " She tensed again, and this time, managed to sustain it for a full minute. By the time the minute was up, her legs were shaking with the effort. Jack gave her a few moments to catch her breath before standing up and taking hold of her forearms, one in each hand. "Alright. Now I want you to put your hand on my shoulders, and tense your legs just like before. I'm going to lift you up, and I'll hold on to you for a minute, and then you're on your own, okay?" Looking too scared to speak, but with determination in her eyes, Lena nodded and held on to his shoulders. "One . . . Two . . . Three!" He grunted the last word and pulled the girl to her feet.

She stayed up, leaning on him heavily for a few moments before gradually pulling her weight off him and on to herself. "Okay," she breathed after a couple of minutes, "you can let go now."

He gave her a look. "You sure?"

She nodded her confirmation, and without another moment to reconsider, Jack gently eased himself away from her, until she was shakily standing on her own two feet with no other means of support whatsoever. Time seemed to slow down the pace of a heartbeat, and she didn't realise she was holding her breath until her head began to feel light. With this realisation, she looked up and met Jack's eyes, in that moment finding them so deep that they were all she could see. She felt like she was drowning in them, although the idea of drowning should seem preposterous to a mermaid, as should the sensation of falling, and yet there she was, falling into his eyes, down and down and down, moving further and further forward-

A pair of arms wrapped around her waist and held her fast, carrying her over to the bed and sitting her down on the soft surface. "You walked, love," he exclaimed, sounding slightly dazed, but she could barely hear him, far too overwhelmed from the odd feeling that she had experienced just a few seconds earlier. "That was an example of hit-the-ground-running if ever I saw one." He grinned at her briefly. "You're a natural, darling. How about another try?"

_May as well_, she thought. Setting both feet on the ground again, she tensed her leg muscles like Jack had shown here, and stood, this time without his help. Conscious of her actions now, she made sure her feet were shoulder width apart - a division that she knew would take weeks of getting used to - and lifted one up, quickly setting it down again, a few inches in front of the other. Lifting up the next foot, she moved it forwards like she had the other one. Another pause, an other step. And another. Looking up excitedly, she took a forth step towards Jack, then a fifth, then a sixth, and he walked backwards, always holding his arms out, ready to catch her if she fell. "That's the way," he shouted. "Now I want you to follow me, we're gonna do a little turn. Ready?" Without waiting for her answer, he began to curve back towards the bed, watching as she carefully directed her shaky steps to follow his. And at the very peak of the turn, it suddenly clicked.

She walked. Straight and true, she turned away from Jack, and walked over to the window, touched the glass, and made her way back to the desk. She picked up a map that looked interesting, rolled it up, and walked over to Jack again, handing him the map before going and sitting down on the bed.

He blinked.

She smiled at him innocently, watching as he blinked again, and opened his mouth as if to say something, before closing it again. "Are you alright, Jack?" she asked, barely able to contain her amusement.

This time, he managed to speak. "How did you-?" He stopped again, obviously leaving the sentence open for her completion, but she couldn't resist teasing him a bit more.

"How did I what?" she asked, pasting an adorably confused expression on her face.

"H-how did you do that?" he said after a while.

She grinned, and stood up. "What? You mean this?" With these words, she walked over to him, where he stood in the middle of the room.

He nodded numbly. "Yeah. That."

Satisfied that she had gotten enough amusement out of the pirate, she began to explain. "Humans are very slow at learning how to do things. As mermaids, we can swim almost within an hour of being born. It takes a few days to get really good at it, of course, but swimming comes to us as naturally as breathing. So, in theory, learning to walk shouldn't take very long, as you can see."

Jack looked as if he was going to argue, but thought the better of it. "Whatever you say," he said at last. "You're the expert." And this time, it was Lena who smiled first.

_**Guest:**_** Thank you! Here you go, sorry for the delay!**

_**lilmissmessy:**_** Haha, yeah . . . he's not particularly familiar with that sort of situation.**

_**Cara:**_** Haha, I do try. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving over here, but thanks anyway. It's the thought that counts :)**

_**Guest:**_** Aw, thanks so much! That means a lot :') I'm sorry it took me so long :/ did you like the new chapter?**

_**meganlloyed16:**_** Here you are!**

_**LittleVampirateXX:**_** Hm, yes, Mer babies are something we are NOT going to get into, but human babies . . . we'll see how we go ;)**

_**BlooperLover:**_** Haha, yep, poor Jack. He's not nearly as experienced here as he is in the movies either. Glad you liked the chapter, hope you enjoyed this one as well.**

_**Thanks for reading, please review!**_

_**CJS xxx**_


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